Demonology Warlock Talents

This section of the Demonology Warlock guide covers everything about Gear: Stat priorities, annd gear recommendations from dungeons and raids, and legendary item rankings. This guide is written by SPK's Not. You can find them at Twitch.tv/notswarlock, or contact them on Area 52. Other useful links are the Public Worksheets, Weak Aura List, and the Lock One Stop Shop. Updated for the patch 7.2.5.

Tier 15:

The biggest strength of this talent is by far the on demand Seelensplitter gain you get from an instant Schattenblitz, not only in terms of cast time but also in terms of movement. With how often we'll be casting Dämonische Ermächtigung there will be plenty of opportunity to use this talent to the highest potential.

Schattenflamme is just a remake of the old Hand of Gul’dan, has 2 charges and is best used in the same ‘stacking’ style as Hand of Gul’dan used to be. The exception being that you can make Schattenflamme stack a 3rd time instead of being capped at 2, further increasing it’s damage. This talent also provides you with a ton of mobility options but since it is best used in the same way Hand of Gul’dan was in Warlords of Draenor if you use it and only get the damage roll of 1 stack it’s not really that great in terms of damage, however it gives you another option for tons of movement.

There are also great strengths for this talent in the level 15 tier since it allows you a lot more freedom in terms of your Seelensplitter usage, especially when paired with Regelmäßiges Ritual In effect it will turn Schreckenspirscher rufen into a Seelensplitter generator (as long as you have a proc) giving you more opportunities to cast Hand of Gul'dan to bolster your demon army.

Tier 30:

This talent will likely be the go-to talent for anything that is sustained AoE, as long as your Verdammnis is able to tick. That caveat is actually the worst part about this talent since it pigeonholes you into knowing if adds will live past the point of Verdammnis expiring since it would lose all effectiveness if they died prior to that point.

The primo talent for burst and sustained AoE; but it does require some finesse and luck with your latency, I'll go into that a little later. Making your Imps suicide into a mob is a great feeling and is funny to watch them rush over to the target just to explode.

Tier 45:

Dämonischer Zirkel lets you place a circle that allows you to teleport to the same location again.

Should be usable in raids as a movement option when you need to go from point A to point B and back and forth, just like it’s used now. The worst part about this talent is that it is very cumbersome to use as it’s a 1 button talent as opposed to a 2 button ability. You’re forced to use a macro that cancels the buff in order for you to place your Circle in another location, which I think defeats the whole purpose of the talent in the first place.

Horrifies the enemy and heals you for 20% of your maximum health.

Weltliche Ängste now has a bit more utility because it can now heal you even on targets that are immune to horrify effects but still pales in comparison to the utility of Dämonischer Zirkel.

Stuns all targets within 8 yards for 4 seconds.

With the addition of a cast time to Schattenfuror this talent also loses a ton of functionality that we otherwise have had for a long time. A 1.5s cast time for a 4s stun is lackluster and not a talent I forsee being taken for much of anything except maybe PvP.

If you're not into tracking more cooldowns or worrying about Hand von Gul'dan splash this will be the option for you. It's a very solid option in the overall scheme of things and allows you to concentrate on other aspects of your play.

Seelenernte is a cooldown that increases you and your pets damage by 20%. The baseline duration is 15 seconds and each target effected by Verdammnis will gain you 2 seconds more. It's really important that Verdammnis is applied on the targets before you use Seelenernte otherwise it doesn't gain the 2 extra seconds.

Final thoughts: Currently Hand von Gul'dan is the best talent overall for all situations because of the saved globals from applying manually (less 'maintenance buffs' to maintain = more demons to summon), there may be some funky things to happen with Seelenernte in farm content however.

Tier 75:

Having this talent move down to this row makes it a bit more interesting of a choice. It provides a solid passive option of additional Damage Reduction and give it a bit more competition across the row of talents.

Brennender Ansturm sacrifices 4% of your health every second and in exchange you gain 50% movement speed. While Brennender Ansturm is active you can't be slower than 100% of your normal movement speed.

Status quo with this talent, solid option for movement overall. It's worth noting that the damage you take from Brennender Ansturm does not take away from the shield you generate from Seele entziehen.

Dunkler Pakt sacrifices 20% of your demons or your health if you have no demon and grants you a 400% shield of the sacrificed health for 20 seconds. It's cooldown is 1 minute.

At first glance this talent seems out of place, but in reality it is a really fabulous option for Demonology especially. The shield you gain from Dunkler Pakt takes it's shields from the health of only your Teufelswache beschwören including when it is empowered through Dämonische Ermächtigung.

Allows you to use a permanent Doomguard or Infernal. You lose your 3 minute cooldown in exchange.

Grimoire der Überlegenheit was very strong at one point but they reduced Doomguard damage by 15% for Demonology only thus rendering this talent very seldom used. The other downside of this talent is that you lose one total Demon for Thal'kiel's Consumption damage.

Summons a second demon which fight for you for 25 seconds and does 100% increased damage. The cooldown is 1.5 minute.

This grimoire however will be one of the go-to's for this tier as it not only provides you with second pet for Thal'kiels Verzehr but allows you to have really strong burst AoE with a secondTeufelswache beschwören and is a short cooldown for a relatively long activity time (90s cooldown with 25s activity). It is also a very solid option in terms of leveling for the same reason but will force you to pay more attention to your primary Teufelswache beschwören for healing (and yes, Health Funnel is ridiculously good so it’s worth saving the pet with it).

Damage done by you or your demon has a chance to grant the other 25% increased damage for 15 seconds.

Grimoire der Synergie is still very strong, especially when you're able to pair it with either Implosion or Thal'kiels Verzehr since it scales the damage of both spells. Not only that but there is a very high up-time on this buff (close to 50-55%) so it is up on a very consistent basis.

Tier 100:

Our AoE talent of the tier summons a Dunkelblick beschwören to attack all enemies with (this is where Hand der Verdammnis will come in handy!). It’s a very sustainable source of AoE damage and that’s exactly where the niche of the talent wants to be. Anything that is sustainable AoE this will be the talent to take (….along with Hand der Verdammnis). Best talent for 2+ targets.

Dämonenblitz functions in a similar way that Thal'kiels Verzehr does in that it’s buffed per pet we have out, it has great synergy with a number of talents and will very likely be the go-to talent for anything Single Target.

This talent is a shining example of Demonology's toolkit since it fits a few different niches in terms of Single Target and AoE and fits very well into a more mixed playstyle. It's especially prevalent in dungeons where you may not want to be fully Single Target or fully AoE.

Final Thoughts: Overall I really like having the options available to me for this talent tier, it doesn’t have too much bloat or overflow while still providing you with some very solid options to choose from for a variety of scenarios. Single Target Seelenverbindung is king supreme after you hit 42 Artifact traits but anything 3+ targets Dunkelblick beschwören is very strong. Dämonenblitz has mostly fallen out of the talent options with the addition of Thal'kiels Aszendenz.